Based on James Marsden’s history of playing impossibly handsome leading men — and often, would-be leading men — in movies including “27 Dresses,” “Enchanted,” “The Notebook” and the “X-Men” films, a burning ambition to do comedy wouldn’t be the first thing you’d imagine he’s been harboring all this time.

But the laughs have always been the Oklahoma native’s first love. “Before I moved out here (to L.A.), I wanted to be a regular on ‘SNL.’ Not a host — I wanted to actually be one of the cast,” Marsden said during a recent interview in Los Angeles. “I just felt like that played to my strengths. I was never that comfortable playing the super leading man. I was more interested in the character actors, the goofy roles.”

So when David Bernad approached him about a series he was exec-producing that was not only funny but also preposterously off-the-wall original, Marsden was intrigued. Created by Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky, who were writer-producers on “The Office,” Amazon Freevee’s “Jury Duty” shares plenty of DNA with that beloved NBC comedy. Only think of it as the version where everyone at Dundler Mifflin knows what’s being filmed is fake — everyone but, say, Dwight Schrute.

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James Marsden is not a jacka**, but he loved playing one on TV. In “Jury Duty,” Marsden shows up to do his civic duty alongside a room full of average mortals and nonchalantly lets everyone know how famous he is. As he ingratiates himself with Ronald Gladden, the easygoing hero of the documentary-style comedy, Marsden can barely contain his excitement at being recognized.

What Gladden doesn’t know is that this version of James Marsden is not the real Marsden. The civil case he and the other jurors are considering isn’t real, either. The only real element in this production is Gladden. And Marsden, working with the show’s creators Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky (who worked together on “The Office”) along with showrunner Cody Heller, was adamant about ensuring that Gladden emerge from the story as its hero.

Based on the escalating popularity of “Jury Duty,” that direction is striking a chord. Viewers have fallen for Gladden’s sincerity and forbearance, especially when he responds to characters like David Brown’s tech apparatus-obsessed Todd by showing him “A Bug’s Life” to let Todd know that he understands and accepts him. (The next day, Todd shows up to court wearing “chair pants.”)

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James Marsden likes playing the jackass.

Especially when that jackass is the entitled version of himself he’s playing in Amazon Freevee’s breakout comedy “Jury Duty.”

The improvised docu-style series follows Ronald Gladden, a real person unaware the increasingly chaotic jury he’s found himself on is completely fake. Everyone around him — including Marsden’s portrayal of himself as the out-of-touch celebrity — is an actor playing their part in the ruse.

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In Amazon Freevee’s runaway hit Jury Duty, James Marsden plays James Marsden. But he’s not the James Marsden who has earned himself a reputation as Hollywood’s jovial song-and-dance man and charm personified. No, this James Marsden is an asshole.

The series revolves around Ronald Gladden, a man who believes he is taking part in your run-of-the-mill documentary taking people behind the scenes of sitting on a jury. The catch, however, is that everything is entirely fake. The trial? Fake. The lawyers and judge? Fake. The jury of his peers, including James Marsden playing a satirical, egotistical of himself called up to do his civic duty like us regular schmoes? Fake. All that’s real is Ronald.

Everything in Ronald’s orbit has been orchestrated by a team of comedy writers and producers running proceedings like the epicentre of a NASA space station. While outlines of each episode were laid out for the players, the improvised scripts evolved in real-time as the action reacted to Ronald’s movements and decisions. The result is eight episodes of long-form improvisation that feel akin to watching train tracks getting laid as a carriage is speeding away. Miraculously, it’s pulled off to create one of the most original and, surprisingly, given the logline of the series, kind-hearted television conceits in years.

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“I’m going to try the Katsu burger, but I’m going to do it like the classic Hollywood actor, without the bun,” James Marsden says with a self-aware laugh from the seat across from me at Kimika, in the Nolita neighborhood of Manhattan. This I have come to know as classic Marsden: someone who isn’t just comfortable skewering the perception of an entitled, ego-centric actor, but who frickin’ loves to do it.

He sits in a posture that’s somehow relaxed and attentive, his eye contact so disarming that I now acutely understand why PopSugar once did a story titled “32 Times James Marsden Looked Drop-Dead, Disney-Prince Hot.” In fact, I’m ready to add a 33rd time. Marsden is commonly approached on the street with the line, “Aren’t you the guy from…?” He waits as fans shuffle through the possibilities: Cyclops in four X-Men films? Corny Collins in Hairspray? The other guy in The Notebook? They often come up short, but he doesn’t mind. There’s a playful, easy-going nature to Marsden that’s surprising given the three decades he’s spent working in an industry known for chewing up and spitting out its actors.

Take, for instance, an idea he has to start his own tequila company that’s really a satire on the self-seriousness of some of his contemporaries. “I want it to be the shittiest tequila I can find,” he explains with the same child-like glee he displayed as Prince Eric in several Enchanted films. “Plastic bottle with a piece of masking tape on it that says ‘Tequila’ and it’s $6 a liter. ‘This tastes like shit. Marsden’s Tequila. But it’ll get you fucked up.’”

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Jury Duty has reached a verdict and come clean to Ronald Gladden, the kind-hearted target of Amazon Freevee‘s hidden camera experiment. The unsuspecting everyday guy was shocked to discover that the case between a business owner and ex-employee was entirely fabricated, along with the rest of his jury members, the judge, the bailiff, and more.

Among the planted jury members was movie and television star James Marsden (Westworld, Dead to Me). Along the way, the actor has forced the jury to become sequestered for the case, clogged up toilets with faux feces, and leaned into the stereotypes of celebrity personalities for this grand ruse only to be faced with kindness from Ronald. So, what was it really like to serve jury duty for the Amazon Freevee series? Below, Marsden opens up about embracing a heightened persona and highlighting kindness.

You’re the reason the jury has to be sequestered, and then you don’t even participate in the sequester. How did it feel to play an antagonistic version of yourself?

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Freevee’s new series Jury Duty is gearing up for its finale on Friday, and executive producer Nicholas Hatton and star James Marsden spoke with Deadline about all that went into creating the docu-style comedy with no one finding out. An exclusive featurette for Jury Duty can be found above.

Across 8-episodes, the series chronicles the inner workings of an American jury trial through the eyes of one juror, Ronald Gladden. Gladden is unaware the entire case is fake, everyone except him is an actor, including Marsden, and everything that happens — inside the courtroom and out — is carefully planned.

Hatton— who collaborated with Sacha Baron Cohen on Borat Subsequent Movie Film and Who is America—opened up about how difficult the process was from the show’s inception to its conclusion because everything could fall apart at any point of production. The key ingredient here was secrecy.

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James Marsden knows where the line is. You need to if you’re going to spend multiple weeks of your life playing a fictional version of yourself for a TV experiment that’s never been tried before.

The veteran actor of many genres is the most recognizable piece in the new series “Jury Duty,” an eight-episode original for Amazon Freevee with one key twist: everyone on screen throughout a run-of-the-mill workplace dispute trial is an actor, except for Ronald Gladden, an unassuming jury member who thinks he’s part of a documentary project. Throughout the process, Marsden plays along as the lone celebrity in the jury pool, dropping hints about upcoming auditions and reminiscing about past roles.

This latest Marsden role became a puffed-up version of a recognizable Hollywood actor who fancies himself man of the people while also constantly inferring that he’s above it all. (He filmed “Jury Duty” right after playing a similar A-list superhero jerk in the most recent season of “Party Down.”) Taking on the challenge, along with the dozens of actors convincingly playing all the other moving parts in the “trial,” meant keeping a fine balance between making a comedy and a believable, benign immersive experience for Gladden.

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James Marsden wants to make one thing clear: Jury Duty is not a prank show. Indeed, looking at the new Amazon Freevee series, which premieres today, centering on one man (Ronald Gladden) who is placed on jury duty for a completely fabricated case and trial, one could assume the focus would be on doing the most ridiculous things possible, then pointing out a camera and mocking his reactions. But even following other fake reality shows with the same concept like The Joe Schmo Show, Jury Duty is distinct in its end goal.

“What the producers told me at the beginning when they pitched it to me,” Marsden explains to Parade.com, “is that we’re creating a hero’s journey for this man. So that, at the end of it, he can have hopefully have—if we do our jobs, fingers crossed—his Twelve Angry Men moment at the end, where he’s uniting all of these weird characters and, and becoming the leader of this jury.

Read on for James Marsden’s full interview with Parade.com. The first four episodes of Jury Duty are currently available on Amazon Freevee, followed by two more on April 14, with the final two episodes arriving April 21.

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James Marsden had quite the unique experience serving on jury duty.

In an exclusive interview with PEOPLE about his new Amazon Freevee series Jury Duty, the 49-year-old actor discussed his own real life experience serving on the jury of a Los Angeles court.

“I just served once before and it was a bizarre experience because it was here in L.A., and I walked into the courtroom and there was a wall of headshots of actors who have served jury duty before — in a government building!” said Marsden, who plays a heightened version of himself and a member of the jury in the new docu-style comedy.

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